Bringing rot to Konor

I played my first game in the Fate of Konor global campaign on Sunday, and my third game in 8th edition. I’m not sure if the campaign is structured this way in other places, but at my local GW store, the first week was for games with a Patrol detachment. We were looking at about 30 Power Levels (plus or minus a few). No other restrictions were put on what we could take. I took a group of my Death Guard. My opponent ran Ultramarines, but all Primaris. To say the least, I was a little anxious as I hadn’t faced off against Primaris Marines yet.

My list included two 5-man Plague Marine squads, a Chaos Rhino, a Chaos Spawn and Typhus. The Plague Marine squads I kitted out the same way: two plasma guns, and then swapped the champion’s boltgun and bolt pistol for a power fist and plasma gun. That meant I could belt out at least six plasma shots each round. My opponent had two Intercessor squads, an Assault Terminators squad, a Primaris Lieutenant, and a Primaris Captain.

We played on a 4′ x 4′ table and used this week’s Konor campaign mission. I deployed my Death Guard in something of a gun line at the leading edge of my deployment zone. I also held Typhus for a teleport strike. My opponent set up his Space Marines in a cluster, near the center edge of his deployment zone, with his Terminators out front. You can get a sense of how things looked in this photo. I was supposed to go first, but he rolled a six on his Seize the Initiative roll. Of course!

So he moved his Terminators up and then shot at my Plague Marine squad and Spawn with his Intercessors. Thanks to some unlucky shooting rolls, and my good save rolls, he only managed to kill one Plague Marine, and put two wounds on the Spawn. His bad luck continued as I managed to kill one of his Terminators with overwatch fire, and then his charge roll failed. Unfortunately, I also lost a Plague Marine as I super charged my plasma guns and rolled a 1 on a hit roll. While his luck wasn’t great, I had two models in the out bin to his one. Not the greatest beginning. In my turn, I drove my Rhino straight forward, nearly crossing into his deployment zone. I also moved my Spawn into position to charge the Terminators. I also got my Plague Marine squads into rapid fire distance to the Terminators. I then took a risk and dumped Typhus behind the Space Marine line, just over 9 inches from his captain. I made sure the Captain was the closest model. My psychic phase really stunk as both powers I tried to manifest with Typhus failed. My shooting phase was better. The Plague Marines smoked two more Terminators, leaving two for the Spawn. I charged with both my Spawn, into the Terminators, and Typhus, into the captain. Both units made it in, and combat ensued. Typhus managed to shear three wounds from the captain, and the Spawn killed another Terminator. Typhus took a wound in return, but the Spawn was killed by the remaining Terminator. The Terminator then consolidated into one of my Plague Marine squads. My Plague Marine champion the crunched said Terminator with his power fist.

Morale was basically meaningless for both sides. My opponent retreated his captain, then encircled Typhus with his to Intercessor squads. They proceeded to hose Typhus down, but only ended up inflicting one wound! Then came the charge. Typhus wounded one of the Intercessor marines with his Destroyer Hive in overwatch. But my opponent’s bad rolling continued and he failed to cause a single wound in combat. Typhus, in return, killed three of the Intercessors!

In my turn, I moved one Plague Marine squad toward the full-strength Intercessor squad and the other I moved toward the Primaris Lieutenant. The Rhino moved fully into the enemy deployment zone. This time, Typhus was able to get Smite off, killing one more Intercessor. In the charge phase, I launched both Plague Marine squads forward, one at the Intercessors and one at the Lieutenant. The Plague Marines killed one Intercessor and the Lieutenant. Typhus killed the last of the Intercessors in the other squad during his activation. Now things were looking really good for my Death Guard. Typhus did take another two wounds from combat.

My opponent was determined to kill Typhus and so charged his captain back into combat. The ensuing melee took another two wounds from Typhus, but Typhus stripped another two wounds from captain. The Plague Marines managed to take down two Intercessors. In my turn, I charged the captain with my other Plague Marine squad and they managed to kill the captain. Typhus failed to manifest any psychic powers, but did kill another Intercessor. The other Plague Marines had terrible hit rolls and did nothing.

“Variable, this is Knife! Where the hell are you?!”

My opponent tried one more time to strip the last wound off Typhus, but failed. At that point, he conceded the game as it was pretty clear he was going to get tabled. So it was a major victory for Chaos! It was a small game, but I had a lot of fun. I learned a little bit about the Primaris Marines in action. The dice flow of the game definitely went in my favor, but having three plasma guns in each Plague Marine squad definitely helped in this game. Also, Typhus was an absolute beast!

I’m planning to play again this Friday. It will be a much bigger game against Blood Angels. The one thing I’m not sure of is if I will run my Death Guard again or draw up a Black Legion force. Hopefully, it will end up another victory for Chaos either way.